We also aimed to keep this trip within reasonable costs, given that we were going to be gone for such a long time. We used Priceline for 2 of our hotels (Vienna, Amsterdam), Starwood Preferred Guest points + cash for 2 others (Salzburg, Munich), paid outright for Prague and stayed with friends in London. I used TripAdvisor.com for my hotel research and 2 sites to help with Priceline bidding - BetterBidding.com and BiddingForTravel.com. Both of these Priceline-related sites are user-driven and offer an idea of what hotels are in what areas for what star level and what cost. They help you make educated bids on PL vs. random guesses, plus you have an idea of what property you'll end up in. This helped us avoid Priceline in Prague as most of their central hotels didn't fit our wish list. If you're interested in any of our hotel reviews, you can check out my TripAdvisor review page.
We also travel with guidebooks and on this trip opted for the most recent and compact city books we could buy (thanks to our neighbor Jonathan for bringing them back for us!). I'll cite which ones with each city recap.
VIENNA
Guidebook - Frommer's Vienna day BY day
We flew into Vienna midday and arriving at the closest subway station I was delighted to surface right into our first Christmas market - the Adventmarkt in front of Karlskirche. We were starving and the smells of the market food made us ravenous so we dropped our bags and headed back for our first taste of Europe, bluzengröstl. This dish features potatoes and onions sautéed with black pudding. If you don't know what black pudding is, you can do as we did and just enjoy the deliciousness, or you can go back to click on the link and be disgusted. Sometimes it's just better to not know!
We had awesome snow in Vienna - super powdery and fun to walk in. The city did a great job of sanding the sidewalks so it was quite easy to walk around. The weather also reduced our sightseeing just a little on the entire trip... we would wake up late and have lunch, then sightsee, then hit the hotel to warm up, then go back out for dinner. Warming up was essential, as in Vienna we had temps from 7°-24°F with the "feels like" being much, much colder. We found out how essential warming up is when on day 2 after a day in the elements my legs refused to warm up after 4 blankets and Kevin trying to transfer some of his body heat. They were bright pink and then spots turned purple and then black. Kev whipped out the Blackberry to Google "frostbite" and sent me to the shower where after 30 min. or so the color started to look normal. I still have remnants of what looks like a sunburn or scratches on parts of my leg. Lesson learned - I wore Kevin's pj pants under my jeans for the rest of the trip.
Bundled up, we wandered around mostly, through parks and to churches. We visited the Stephansdom church where Kevin continued his unique Euro-pastime of climbing church bell tower stairs. Virtually every well-located church in Europe that we've visited will let you climb their stairs for a small fee and you're almost always rewarded with a great view.
One of my favorite sights in Vienna was the Naschmarkt. This is permanent street market that extends for several street blocks. There are 3 rows of businesses that run the length of the market so you have 4 rows of storefronts to browse. 1 of the rows houses mainly cafes and the others house a delight of culinary wonder... everything from meat to fruit/veg to antipasto picnic supplies to baked goods.
We also enjoyed the Albertina Museum which was running an exhibit on the drawings of Rembrandt and Picasso's peace-themed work.
Some restaurants we would recommend from our book are Fratelli, where we had outrageous pasta and pizza, Zanoni & Zanoni for gelato (no free tastes, though), and Figlmüller for gigantic wiener schnitzel that overlaps the plate. When the book tells you those schnitzels are enough to split, you listen. Kevin and I didn't and ended up stuffing ourselves silly.
The rest of our time was spent browsing and eating our way through Vienna's Christmas markets. I used this site a lot while in Vienna to plan which markets to go to and loved the handy map at the bottom of the page. For those with no knowledge of what exactly a Christmas market is, they are usually in public squares, parks or in front of churches and have a variety of booths featuring ornaments, handicrafts, glühwein (warm mulled wine) and food.
Many of the stands where glühwein is sold have outdoor leaning tables and these areas become an impromptu bar where large groups of friends meet. Glühwein (and related alcohol-infused punches and juices) is served in collectible mugs (you put a deposit down) and each market has its own 2010 designed mug. We attempted to get in the spirit by drinking some of this stuff but barely made it a few sips in. Kevin opted to try the cider which was also heavily spiked and I don't think he got very far. Drinks aside, we had some outrageous market food in Vienna.
Among our favorites we tried heisse fladen mit speck & kӓse (a pizza-like crust with bacon and cheese), kӓsekrainer (outrageous smoked sausage with cheese inside) and a fried donut-type bowl covered in powdered sugar and cranberry sauce. The sausage stands in Austria were neat in the way that they served the goods... the buns were baguettes that were stuck on heated pokers, creating a toasted hole for the sausage to slide into. There were also baked good/pastry stands everywhere. The stand above got my mouth watering but the donut/apple combo we bought was just ho-hum. As our friend from Munich said about these pastry stands, it always looks better than it tastes. We found that statement to only apply when things were not fresh... if you saw your meal being grilled or fried or baked in front of you, it always tasted better.
Vienna was a great way to kick off our trip as we had now adjusted to the weather, Christmas markets, and gluttonous food that awaited us in 5 more cities. On to Salzburg!
WANT TO SEE MORE?
Check out the photos from this part of our trip over on Facebook.
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